By Ann Boutwell
Jan. 2, 1970: A Japanese audience cheered Scarlett at Tokyo’s Imperial Theater. It was a new four-hour musical in Japanese based on Margaret Mitchell’s classic novel, Gone With the Wind. Sakura Jinguji, known to local audiences for years, received an ovation for the title role. In the audience was noted actress Ingrid Bergman and Yukio Mishima, renowned Japanese poet, playwright and actor. The musical was adapted and produced by Kazuo Kikuta of the Toho Company. Mitchell’s book is one of Japan’s all time best sellers and was especially popular during the bleak years of reconstruction immediately after World War II.
Jan. 3, 1937: Former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket football player turned movie star Randolph Scott (1898-1987) stars opposite Mae West in Go West Young Man. Scott was born George Randolph Scott in Orange County, Virginia. He came from a wealthy family and was educated at private schools, where he excelled at sports, particularly football, baseball and swimming. After service in World War I, he enrolled in Georgia Tech on Sept. 17, 1919, and was a member of the school’s 1919 football team coached by John Heisman. Howard Hughes, a family friend, helped Scott take his next career step into the movies.
Jan. 8, 1979: Marianna, the home of Blanche Lieberman and Victor Hugo Kriegshaber, earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. Blanche Kriegshaber bought the property in Moreland Park in April 1901, on the eastern edge of Inman Park from Asbury Fletcher Moreland. Later that year architect Willis Franklin Denny II, a soon to be neighbor, designed the creamy-yellow one and a half story, eight room structure that sat on a foundation of rough-hewn granite. In 1970, Wilma Stone adapted the Kriegshaber home at 292 Moreland Avenue into the Wrecking Bar, a business that salvaged woodcarvings, mantels, doors and other restoration treasures from older homes. The new owner, Bob Sandage, bought the site in March 2010 from Inman Park Properties and plans to open the Wrecking Bar Brew Pub in March 2011.
Jan. 10, 1870: In Atlanta, the 1870 session of Georgia General Assembly convened in the Kimball Opera House on Marietta Street. The building served as Georgia’s state capitol from 1869-1889. The Assembly reseated the black legislators expelled in September 1868. The Kimball burned in 1894.
Jan. 21, 1896: Three weeks after the Cotton States and International Exhibition closed on Dec. 31, 1895, Piedmont Park was a dreary place. The debris surrounding the demolished buildings marred the memory of the landscape’s grandeur. Only a Ferris wheel remained – the Phoenix Wheel. The exhibition’s favorite attraction was a must ride, standing 165 feet above Lake Clara Meer. Built by Philadelphia’s Phoenix Iron and Bridge Company, the Phoenix Wheel was dismantled during the winter of 1896 and shipped to Celoron Amusement Park in Chautauqua Lake, New York. It opened Memorial Day, 1896 as the Big Wheel. Fifty-six-years later it was again packed up, shipped to the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona, and renamed the Skyride. On May 28, 1981, after 86 years of continuous operation, the Phoenix Wheel was demolished and sold for scrap. Home Depot and Georgia Aquarium founder Bernie Marcus has suggested erecting a new Ferris wheel in Downtown.
Jan. 27, 1965: Atlanta’s first bi-racial formal dinner honoring 1964 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther king, Jr. took place at the Dinkler Plaza Hotel. The city leaders who organized the event were Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr., Rabbi Jacob Rothschild of the Temple, Roman Catholic Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan, Ralph McGill, publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, and Dr. Benjamin Mays, president of Morehouse College.